


Wipe the Clock

by riyku



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 07:02:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riyku/pseuds/riyku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Camp Chitaqua, 2014: Five years after the worst decision that Dean has ever made, a man wearing a white suit stumbles into camp, lost and confused. Sam's memories are a jigsaw puzzle and none of the pieces seem to fit, the only thing he knows for sure is that he had to get to Dean. Between the recon missions and the supply runs, the demons and the croats, Dean struggles to hide Sam in plain sight, and to fight off the increasingly insistent advances of a man who does not remember that he is Dean's brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wipe the Clock

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2012 samdean_otp minibang challenge, with beautiful artwork by badbastion [here](http://badbastion.livejournal.com/13278.html).

 

A knock sounds on the cabin door and Dean’s on his feet and standing in the center of the room before he’s even fully awake, swaying slightly. There’s a tingle at the base of his skull and at the tips of his fingers and his eyes feel like they were plucked out of his head at some point when he wasn’t paying attention and left out to dry.  
  
He looks back at his bed, his movements sluggish. He’d been in it hardly long enough to leave a dent. His back hurts. He still has his boots on. It’s been two days since he’s taken them off and twice that since he’s had a shower. Time out of mind since he’d had the luxury of hot water.  
  
The knock comes again.  
  
“Yeah,” Dean croaks, barely more than a rasp of air through his dry throat. A rotten taste makes his mouth twist and his tongue feels approximately ten times too big. He licks his teeth, clears his throat, tries again. “What?”  
  
The door opens a fraction.  
  
“Sir?” A voice as quiet as the knock comes through the crack in the door and Dean adjusts his line of sight down a couple of feet. It’s the kid, all skinny arms and skinny legs and swimming in a shirt that had once belonged to someone definitely female and twice his size. His parents had named him Winston, but Dean took care of that pretty quickly. A name like that really gave a kid a hefty pair of shoes to fill, given their present predicament. Years ago, before all this, Dean had seen a zombie flick where people branded themselves with the names of their hometowns, and he’d taken a shine to the idea. Everyone calls the kid Hooper nowadays, after for a tiny burg smack in the middle of Nebraska, population nothing.  
  
He’s the last survivor of some hairy scene that went down with his folks, a couple of demons and a handful of croats tossed in like a cherry on top. Has some spunk to him, though, eleven years old and somehow he’d made it past herds of croats, military patrols and at least a dozen barricades to show up on their doorstep. He’d been half-starved and manic, and Dean, who knows better than most that growing up paramilitary is no sorta life for a kid, had taken him in, put clean clothes on his back and a meal in his belly and hadn’t been able to shake him since. Besides, the camp had needed a go-fer. He’s been useful.  
  
“You should be asleep,” Dean tells him, and it’s some vague hammer to the knee reflex. It’s not like the kid’s got school in the morning.  
  
“Risa sent me,” Hooper says. “She says there’s something you need to see.”  
  
“What’s busted?” Dean asks, resigned. Things are always breaking around here. Cars, weapons, generators. Their supply of spare parts is skimpy and there isn’t time or manpower to keep it all up and running.  
  
“Nothing. I—I don’t know. She won’t let me get close enough to see.”  
  
Warning signals fire up, and it’s enough to get Dean’s feet moving. Risa’s not the type to baby anybody, even if it’s just a kid. She’s cracked from a mold similar to Ellen, tough as nails and plainspoken. Just as loyal, too.  
  
By the time Dean gets his head cleared, his Beretta tucked into the back of his waistband and his jacket straight on his shoulders, Hooper’s backed up onto the porch steps. A shuttered lantern dangles from his grimy hand, and he allows the barest sliver of light to slant toward the uneven ground.  
  
He starts off, darting backward glances over his shoulder every few steps to be sure that Dean’s following. It makes Dean think of Lassie, and for a swift second he misses television so strongly it’s like a punch to the chest. There’s more to it than that, of course. It’s not a boy and his dog that makes Dean’s chest feel tight and sends him skipping through a crash coarse of mental landmines. It’s the motel rooms, the long, unbroken highways, the cold beer and the taco trucks. It's the growl of the Impala's engine and that unique smell of hot metal and sun-warmed leather. It’s the biggest mistake Dean has ever made, and it’s Sam. It was _always_ Sam.  
  
They wind along dipping dirt paths in a general southwesterly direction, between cabins in varying states of falling down. Risa’s place is suspiciously dark, no flickering glow of lamps or blue shine of flashlights. The preacher’s shack is the same, but that isn’t much of a surprise. The man usually rises at the first hint of the sun and sinks with the thing as well. Dean scans the trees, the unnatural straight-line shape of the fence in the distance, the constant red haze on the horizon. The air is filled with the smell of far-away buildings burning.  
  
Further into the woods, the smell of smoke fades and the crackling scent of ozone and sulfur takes over, punctuated with rotting leaves and damp earth. In the foggy non-light from the half-moon, Dean can barely make out the silhouettes of four people standing over a lump on the ground. Someone’s got the business end of a rifle pointed in it’s direction and Dean figures it’s gotta be a croat. It’s been more than a week since one broke through the fence, and Dean figures they’re due.  
  
Dean claps Hooper on the shoulder and pulls him backward.  
  
“Go,” he says, ruffling the kid’s greasy hair. “Get some sleep. It’s past your bedtime.” Hooper rolls his eyes so hugely that he probably did some permanent damange, but complies; his feet drag and shoulders slump unhappily. “Don’t forget to brush your teeth,” Dean hollers after him on basic principle. “No such things as dentists anymore.”  
  
In the dark, four people coalesce into familiar profiles. Cas is leaning crooked over the handle of his cane. Risa and Nate stand side-by-side. Nate’s the one with the rifle. Predictably, Chuck’s the one talking, squared off clipboard tucked under one arm and he’s gesturing with the other like some kind of neurotic traffic cop.  
  
It’s then that Dean sees it: a sleeve so bright and pure it almost glows in the darkness, and all the air rushes out of his lungs with the force of a punch, leaving him wheezing and off balance. Pointy nose and strong chin. Long hair curling around his ears and fanned out from his head. Tall and big shouldered. Sam. Sam.  
  
Dean suddenly feels lost, drifting, blown very far off course. Every muscle tightens up, fast as electrocution, some strange disconnect going on between his brain and the rest of his body. He should be moving, or shouting, doing _something_. But instead his skin goes clammy, the gun at his back is abruptly hot, and a quiet voice tells him that pulling it out might not be a bad idea. A louder voice questions exactly where he should point it; at Sam, at himself, or at that son of a bitch who has the balls to take a bead on his brother. All three of them look to be an equally appropriate course of action.  
  
He doesn’t know the circumstances that led his brother to letting the devil in, has spent the last five years too busy dealing with the consequences to devote a lot of time to pondering the how’s and why’s of it. In his deepest, darkest drunks Dean convinces himself that the blame’s probably resting square on his own shoulders. It’s easier that way. Hell, even maybe a little bit true. Truth is relative anyway, everybody knows that, and it’s probably even more relative since everything fell apart.  
  
Cas shuffles over to him, awkward and wooden, one foot still in the brace on account of the broken bones. The other is bare, toes filthy like he's some kind of kid who’s spent all day playing in the dirt. The frayed cuffs of his jeans scuff across dead leaves and send them scattering. The grip he has on the handle of his cane looks painful, knuckles white and bloodless.  
  
“Dean,” he starts, “it’s Sam.” He’s only walked a very short distance and already he’s winded. It could be the barbiturates or it could be the pain. Anybody’s guess, nowadays.  
  
By some unfathomable miracle, Dean’s legs start working. “You don’t say,” he grunts, and it’s good to know that regardless of whether or not Cas is still in possession of his celestial mojo, his talent for stating the obvious will forever remain unchanged. Dean latches onto that for the sparse comfort it gives him. “Who found him?” He’s already thinking about damage control, keeping this knowledge to an inner circle. The smaller the better. He doubles his pace, sets his jaw, eyes stuck like superglue on his brother. Cas has trouble keeping up.  
  
“Nate,” Cas informs him. “He was on watch. Chuck got the call on the shortwave.”  
  
Someone had covered him up with a thin, drab green army blanket. Probably Chuck, if Dean had to put money on it. Dean approaches slowly, haltingly. One of Sam’s arms isn’t covered, sprawled out and left that way, as if no one wanted to touch him. It’s an understandable point. His hand’s pale, blood splattered fingers curling limp toward his palm, spider-like.  
  
“Lower your weapon and tell me everything you know,” Dean commands, voice carefully neutral.  
  
Nate blinks, like he’s coming out of some sort of daze, eyes wide and his face white with shock. “There’s a lotta blood, Dean. I—I don’t think it’s his,” he stammers.  
  
Dean bites down hard on the inside of his cheek. “We’ll get to that,” he says. “Start at the beginning.”  
  
“It got quiet. I knew something was wrong when it got so damn quiet. And then he was just there. I swear, man, out of nowhere. I’d covered that section of less than five minutes before. He was stumbling kinda?” Nate’s inflection tips upward at the end, like he’s asking a question. He tilts his hand this way and that. “Like. Like one of those puppets. Y’know. With the strings attached.”  
  
“A marionette?” Chuck supplies.  
  
“Yeah, that’s it.” Nate licks his lips and continues. “He started walking toward me, but it was like I wasn’t even there, like he was staring through me, and I shoulda shot him. Any other time I would have…” He trails off, shaking his head.  
  
“Keep going,” Dean says.  
  
“He was talking, nonsense mostly. Then he looked right at me and said the strangest thing. He asked if he was in Detroit.” With a puzzled expression on his face, Nate adds, “Does this _look_ like Detroit?”  
  
A bolt of ice lodges in Dean’s heart, and he barely registers what Nate says next.  
  
“Then the guy just collapsed. Hard. Like a building falling down.”  
  
“Is he?” Dean can’t finish the sentence. He looks down at his own hands and knows he can’t even check for a pulse, adrenaline coursing through him and giving him the shakes. Instead he bends low, kneels with his ear to Sam’s chest and his hands spread wide on Sam’s ribs. Mud soaks into his jeans and he sinks fractionally into the ground.  
  
He’s spent the last five years trying to forget what it’s like to touch his brother, and now he’s right back into the thick of it. He’s started and he’s not sure if he’ll ever be able to stop.  
  
A heartbeat, thready and barely there. A faint movement of air from Sam’s open mouth. Sam’s ribs expand and contract beneath his fingers. It’s simultaneously the best and worst news to come his way in a very, very long time.  
  
“You got any intel on this?” Dean asks Chuck, and he’s almost able to strip the tremor from his voice. “Tell me you know something.”  
  
Chuck shrugs, his face pinched in an apology. “I wish I could. The angels aren’t talking. There’s been nothing. Not even static. I’m tapped out.”  
  
“It’s not you,” Cas says, his slurring monotone oddly grounding in the face of all else. “They’re the ones who tapped out.”  
  
Nate clears his throat, takes a half-step toward them. “Dean, who—“  
  
“Back off,” Dean growls at the first hint of movement, sitting back on his haunches, palms on the ground. Dirt collects under his fingernails as his hands claw their way into fists.  
  
Nate steps forward again, his rifle now slung harmlessly over his shoulder. Good man. Hell of a shot. He used to be an accountant. Tax lawyer. Something. Risa stands at his elbow, feet spread shoulder-wide in a fighter’s stance and her hand quaking a little around the grip of the semi-automatic pistol strapped to her hip.  
  
“Did I stutter? Stay back,” Dean says.  
  
Nate licks his lips, eyes darting in all directions, trying to make sense out of the murky darkness, distinguish between tree trunks and possible threats. “You might wanna…” he pauses. “Could be a croat.”  
  
“He’s not,” Dean says. “He’s immune.”  
  
Nate looks to Chuck for confirmation, and Chuck steps between Nate and Dean, using his body as a roadblock, clipboard held across his chest like a shield. “It’s true. Listen,” Chuck continues, mollifying, “you gotta give him a pass. Please.”  
  
Dean makes it to his feet, bends to pick Sam up, his jaw set and his back steeled against the weight of his brother. He gets Sam off of the ground, hardly a foot, then Cas limps forward.  
  
“No,” Dean grits out as Cas puts one hand beneath Sam’s back and starts to hoist him. Cas shoulders Sam up, moves Sam’s arm to loop around Dean’s neck. It helps, shifts Sam’s weight the tiniest amount and makes it more bearable. “No,” Dean repeats. “I got him.”  
  
“I know you do,” Cas says, and looks at Dean in that piercing way of his, glassy-eyed, all stoned and sympathetic.  
  
Chuck closes in on them then, head bowed, covers Dean’s hand with one of his own and Cas does the same. The three of them stand like that for a few moments, no one saying a word, until Dean sways slightly.  
  
His breath burns on the way in, rattles unsteadily on the way back out again, his throat hot and aching. Something breaks open in Dean’s chest, a thing that’s hollow, vast, and infinitely lonesome. Something like homesickness, only that can’t be quite right. Sam is right here.  
  
“What sorta fresh hell—“ Risa says when Dean starts the march back to the encampment.  
  
Dean pauses, turn to stare her down, eyes half lidded. He sets in face in a cold, emotionless mask. It’s a good fit, well-used and worn in over the years. For the first time in a long time it also feels fake. He shifts Sam’s weight, forgets himself and presses his mouth to the crown of Sam’s head.  
  
“I’ve never really understood that expression,” Dean says in a careful monotone. “You know that I spent a summer there once.” His steady tone starts to splinter, a pulse of venom rising up through the cracks left behind. “Bit of an expert, and you know what? Hell is blood and bone and rotting flesh.”  
  
Her face loses all its color, looks silver in the moonlight, but Risa keeps her chin up in some sorta unspoken challenge, her throat working as she swallows.  
  
“There’s all that, sure, but that’s just the easy stuff. I’ll tell you the truth about hell. Hell is _repetition._ ”  
  
Risa’s jaw clicks closed audibly and her gaze flickers from Sam to Dean. “Let me know if you need anything.”  
  
“We’ll be fine. We’ve been more banged up than this.”  
  
“Wait a minute. Is that?” Risa doesn’t finish the thought.  
  
The people who know about Sam are few and far between. Chuck and Cas, of course. Bobby too, but Bobby went on radio silence a few months back. Dean tries to not think too hard on that. He has enough trouble keeping the forty-two souls entrusted to him here in one piece, relatively well fed and as safe as can be expected.  
  
Some folks here know that Dean had a brother, and Dean has rationed out information about him in bits and pieces. Small snapshots of the kid in gold picture frames. People know that Dean had a brother, and that he was smart and strong, a hell of a good hunter, and better than Dean in every possible way. They know that Dean’s brother fought, and they also know better than to ever mention him.  
  
Finally, Dean answers her. “Maybe. I don’t know.” As he spins on his heel and starts marching toward the center of camp, Dean mutters against Sam’s temple, “I hope so.”  
  
Sam is dead weight, jack-knifed at his waist, legs hooked over Dean’s forearm and his head tucked under Dean’s chin. Dean buries his nose in Sam’s hair, stringy and sticking in clumps to his skull and reeking of blood and dirt. Cas and Chuck walk at his back, side by side as if they’re flying in formation and Dean is point-man.  
  
Dean pauses at the base of the sagging stairs that lead up to his place. “We’re good,” he says, thinking that there are some things that have to stay in the family. “Just get me some water, would ya?”  
  
Dean thinks about Cold Oak as he shoulders past the door, his brother’s limp form hugged close to his chest. He lays Sam out on his bed now and strips him down to his shorts, dropping the white suit to the floor, then kicking it across the room a second later, like it might come alive any second. He wants to take gasoline and a match to it, but that will have to wait.  
  
He lights a lantern instead and places it on the small table beside the bed. The angle of the low light is odd, changing all of Sam’s familiar features into something strange and sinister.  
  
Three square meals a day hadn’t been too high up on the devil’s agenda, it would appear. The basic scaffolding is still there: Sam’s mile-long legs, the wide plane of his shoulders, and his strong, sinewy muscle. Dean can count every single rib, though. His cheeks are hollow, high cheekbones pronounced. Sam’s stomach dips in, and his skin is stretched so tightly over the bony jut of his hipbones that it looks painful. His eyes are sunken, bruised a deep shade of purple beneath them.  
  
Sam’s got blood on his face, on his mouth, more of it collected in the hollow of his throat and that never has sat too well with Dean.  
  
The door opens with a soft click and Chuck enters without a word, back hunched under the burden of two buckets of water, lazy tendrils of steam rising from one of them. It makes Dean wonder how long he’s stood by the bed, dazed. Long enough for Chuck to come up with clean towels and heat some water.  
  
Shifting his weight, twiddling his fingers and cracking his knuckles like he’s not sure what to do with his hands, Chuck says, “I’ll scrounge up some clothes for him. See if I can find something that’ll fit. It’s getting cold at night.”  
  
“Yeah,” Dean says softly. “Thanks.”  
  
Kneeling by the bed, Dean pulls the soapy water to his side. The uneven floorboards creak and groan and do a real job on his knees. He grabs his toothbrush and takes Sam’s hand in his own. Sam’s fingers are limp and lifeless, but Dean feels his pulse. He can see it when he turns Sam’s hand palm up, then traces the intricate network of veins in Sam’s wrist to feel the faint flutter of thin skin every time his heart beats.  
  
Methodically, Dean goes about the task of cleaning Sam’s hands, scrubbing beneath his fingernails until the blood there fades to a watery pink. His last good toothbrush gets ruined but it’s a small price to pay.  
  
After, Dean smoothes Sam’s hair back, fingers catching in the knots. It’s too long, it’s always been too long. Sam’s forehead is unlined and there’s something about him that looks young. Curiously so, like time has stood still for him. Like the last five years never happened. His lashes form a dark brushstroke in the hollow of his eyes. Sam’s mouth is turned up slightly at the corners, as if he is right on the edge of a smile. Dean wipes the blood from it with his thumb, thinks about fireworks.  
  
Getting Sam's hair clean is more of a production, Dean pouring water over Sam's head and the mattress taking the brunt of what spills. Dean's fingers are pale and wrinkled by the time the water rinses out clear. Throughout this, all of it, the stripping and the dousing and the cold rag wiped across his face, Sam hasn’t moved an inch. No flinch or protest, no sympathetic reaction to heat or cold. His breathing remains steady, his heartbeat the same.  
  
Dean arranges Sam, straightens his legs and folds Sam’s arms over his chest and takes a step back.  
  
“Jesus. Sorry, Sam,” Dean says. Sam looks like some sorta Bela Lugosi knock off so Dean stretches his arms by his sides instead, finds every available blanket and tucks them snugly under Sam’s chin, then looks down at Sam, at a loss for what to do next.  
  
The closest functioning hospital is half a day’s drive away through a hot zone twenty miles in diameter and past at least five military checkpoints. It’s been six months since Dean was there, and at that point the place had already been picked pretty clean, a single doctor and a handful of nurses left to man the joint. Dean doesn’t know if it’s still standing.  
  
Dean bundles up the white suit, holding it far away from his body like it might become sentient at any moment, and kicks open the door.  
  
Cas is sitting on the porch, slowly see-sawing in a spindly rocking chair. He has holes in the knees of his jeans, more around the collar of his t-shirt, and his hands tightly grip the shotgun resting across his thighs. It’s been a while since he’s shaved and right about now he looks like heaven’s answer to the Hatfield’s or McCoy’s.  
  
“Supply run in the morning,” Dean says, knuckling across his eyes, exhaustion smacking into him suddenly. “Talk to Chuck, see what we need. Take Risa and Nate with you.” He keeps his voice pitched quiet, almost drowned out by the droning, high note of crickets and cicadas. He looks across the camp, the cabins laid out in a familiar huddle and barely visible, inky spots set against the darkness. This place must have been great once, before everything fell apart.  
  
“Keep them out of the way, you mean,” Cas says. “Buy you some time.”  
  
“Yeah. That too.” Dean pulls in a deep breath, holds it until his lungs burn and his ribs start to ache. “There’s a mountain of fucked up, and it’s comatose in my bed right now.”  
  
“He’ll wake up,” Cas says with certainty.  
  
Dean barks a sharp laugh, scrapes his knuckles against the raspy skin of his jaw. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” He stands up, stretches massively and throws the knotted lump of Sam’s suit into Castiel’s lap. “Burn these, would ya?”  
  
Sam hasn’t moved an inch since he left. His arms are still lifeless by his sides, legs stretched out straight as matchsticks, the blankets smooth over his body. Dean drags a stiff-backed chair beside the bed and sits, tipping it backward and balancing it against the wall. He opens up an old issue of _Life_ magazine, a relic from a couple years ago when magazines didn't seem like such a novelty, and starts to read aloud. It's halting, and Dean feels stupid, but he keeps going and makes it all the way to the end, flips back to the first page and starts at the beginning again, reading until the words start to swim and double, like ants marching across the page. Dean might as well be speaking Latin for all the sense it’s making to him, but it feels good to talk to Sam, to think that there’s the smallest chance that Sam might be able to hear him.  
  
Planting his forearms on the bed, Dean leans in close, covers one of Sam’s hand with his own. It’s a chick move, something he’d never in a million years allow himself to do if Sam was awake. He can’t help it, and doesn’t really want to. He rests his head on the edge of the bed.  
  
“Are you in there, Sam? Tell me you’re in there.”  
  


 

  
  
Dean is not a good man by any reckoning. Two weeks ago, he’d shot one of his very own men point-blank after the guy had been infected when a recon mission had gone south. Dean had walked away and let other people deal with the wreckage of it. He’d do it again in a heartbeat. He wouldn’t even blink.  
  
Dean doesn’t get all the reasons folks have settled here, laid their stake to this little bit of land, and probably laid their stake to Dean too. It might have something to do with fear.  
  
The back of Dean’s neck itches and he knows that people are staring, shadowy forms at the windows and half-seen movement behind the corners of cabins. He’d been living in the hut closest to the entrance of the place, the battered wooden sign visible from the eastward facing window, and he’d done that pretty much without thought, the same way he’d always taken the bed closest to the door when it was just the two of them on the road.  
  
He’s left Sam alone. Sure, there’s a devil’s trap under the bed and Dean’s bolted him down with iron chains crusted with salt, but it still makes him twitchy. He’d run the gamut of tests on Sam this morning: exorcized him, thrown holy water in his face, nicked him with a knife made of silver and had gotten exactly zilch for his efforts.  
  
Now he’s moving house, and he’s not looking too closely at the reasons for it, taking up residence in an empty cabin near the rear of the camp. The crew he’d sent out this morning to repair a hole in the fence file past him and Chuck as they struggle to haul a mattress down the potholed path. They've got tools under their arms and two guys in the back are dragging extra chain link behind them.  
  
Huffing, Chuck says, “Weird vibe around here today.”  
  
Dean grunts, already wondering how the hell he’s going to get Sam moved without anyone seeing him.  
  
“They know something’s off,” Chuck goes on when Dean doesn’t reply. “They’re afraid of you.”  
  
“Let them be. Doesn’t change a thing.”  
  
“Is it better to be feared than loved?” Chuck asks, with a sarcastic twist to his mouth.  
  
“You tell me, Machiavelli. I leave that kinda thing up to people who are a lot smarter than I am.”  
  
“You don’t give yourself enough credit.”  
  
Dean backs into an ankle-busting hole and barely saves himself from toppling at the last second. “I don’t need credit. I just need to get this the hell over with.”  
  
His new digs aren’t particularly any better than his old place, but it is a little larger and a bit more private, and that gives it two check marks in the plus column.  
  
The place smells musty, abandoned. Old bird nests clog the rafters and there are a few suspicious holes in the walls. Weathered planks have warped and pulled away from the frame in places, leaving gaps large enough to fit a deck of cards through. Dean patches them up using scrap lumber, installs a fresh set of locks on the door and hangs the keys around his neck.  
  
He’s not sure if he’s locking other people out or if he’s locking Sam in. It’s probably a little of both.  
  


 

  
  
Dean sits by Sam while his men go on scouting missions, and search further and further afield for supplies. He brushes Cas off, and barely touches the food that Hooper leaves on his doorstep. He watches the light change on Sam's face for hours at a time.  
  
It turns out that three days is Dean’s limit. Three days of sitting by Sam’s bedside, and of turning odd jobs around the hut into hours’ long affairs. At one point, he touches Sam’s arm and it might have been his imagination, but he thinks he sees the slightest flicker of change in his brother’s expression, some mild distress creasing his forehead and a tiny shift of movement behind Sam’s eyelids. Dean’s heart skips a beat and he clamps down on Sam’s hand, feeling the crush of bones grinding together. He doesn’t want to hurt his brother, not in any conscious sense, but he’s aching for a reaction, any indication that when Sam wakes up—and Sam will wake up—that it’s going to be Sam he sees and not the devil.  
  
Obviously Sam’s not talking, and none of Dean’s sources are saying anything that Dean doesn’t already know. Five more days and Houston is slated to get napalmed. An oil refinery exploded right outside of New Orleans and the fires spread to the city. The president is in some secret bunker somewhere and military personnel are going AWOL in droves. Whole communities are downing Kool-Aid Jamestown-style. Meanwhile, Chuck keeps breathing down Dean's neck about penicillin and toilet paper, and now Dean might just have the devil locked behind a deadbolt hammered into a flimsy door. There’s some sorta joke in there somewhere. A cosmic one.  
  
There's a storage hut on the outskirts of camp, corrugated steel and locked up as tight as Fort Knox. It used to be a storage space when this place was home sweet home to dozens and dozens of kids in the summer, and a few canoes still hang on the brackets drilled into the interior. Now, the outside walls are graffitied with angel proofing, layers and layers of it, tagged like the undersides of overpasses if any decent sized city. A chair is bolted to the floor in the center of a devil’s trap, and the bench along one of the walls holds Dean’s tools of the trade, a gallon of holy water, a series of wicked serrated blades, silver and iron and salt.  
  
Reverend Parsons stands by the door. He’s known as Sonny to his friends, which Dean finds kind of hokey, and offers Dean no end to amusement. He’s a good guy though, the type of man who still thanks Jesus and God and all His angels before passing the mashed potatoes. A man who still has faith in all the things he cannot see. He’s got a demon by the neck now, and the thing squirms in his grasp, its hands tied behind its back, gagged under a black hood and bound by heavy iron chains.  
  
Dean unlocks the door and kicks it open, sweeping his arm wide in a welcoming gesture. “Table for one,” he says as Parsons tosses the thing inside. “Thanks.” Dean claps him on the back and sends him on his way.  
  
Still blindfolded, the demon skitters across the floor like a mutated beetle, scuffing its shoes on the ground and sliding backward on its ass. Dean yanks it to its feet and rips off the hood. They’d given the poor sap the once over, split lip and a gaping hole where his two front teeth had been. Trickles of blood seep from half a dozen head wounds. The body probably won’t make it, but that’s none of Dean’s concern.  
  
Spinning a couple of heavy padlocks from his two first fingers, Dean kicks the demon in the center of his chest, sending him backward to land in the chair. Dean locks him in and removes the gag.  
  
“Well, I’ll be damned,” the demon says, grinning, his tongue lolling out in the space where two front teeth used to be. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? How long has it been, Dean?”  
  
“Not nearly long enough.”  
  
“Aw, don’t tell me that you don’t remember me? I’ll admit that I don’t have the same kinda star power as Alastair, but I certainly must have left a mark.”  
  
“Small fish, big pond,” Dean says dismissively.  
  
“Tell me Dean, how’s your brother, anyway?”  
  
Dean manages to hide his flinch, but it’s a near thing. “Thought you might be able to tell me.”  
  
“You’ve got it all wrong, my good fellow,” the demon says, affecting an uppity accent that makes him sound like one of those Hyde Park Roosevelts. “The only thing that Lucifer hates more than you monkeys are demons. He makes it a point of taking us out as often as he can, unless we can find a way to make ourselves useful.”  
  
“Looks like the devil and I have something in common then,” Dean points out. “Speaking of. Don’t get me wrong, great chat we’re having and all that but there are a few things I need to know. Where is he?”  
  
“Really wish I could help, but I don’t think that’s in the cards. I don’t know where he is.”  
  
“You’re lying.” Dean's getting very tired of this, very quickly. “We’ll get to the truth eventually. There’s a reason that I was Alastair’s pet, you know.”  
  
The demon’s leering grin disappears and it ticks its head up, like a bloodhound testing the air, breathing in through its nose and its open mouth. “Shhh,” it hushes him.  
  
“Oh, hell no,” Dean says whirling to the workbench, picking up a syringe and loading it up with holy water. When he turns back, the demon is shaking, the heavy locks rattling against the chains. The thing is scared, petrified clear through, and Dean's not sure why, but knows it has nothing to do with him.  
  
“Let me go,” the demon begs, a harsh whisper through its clenched jaw. It starts to kick at the floor, claw at the arms of the chair. A few fingernails break and skitter off, leaving bloody smudges on the metal. “Please, I’ll do anything.”  
  
Two and two finally add up to four and Dean drops the syringe, shattering it on the concrete floor. He has the presence of mind to lock the door on his way out but only barely, and sets off at a dead run toward his place, ripping the chain from his neck that holds the keys to his cabin. Sam’s alone. He should never have left Sam alone.  
  
He’s wheezing, panting, dark spots swimming across his vision as he fumbles with the locks to his place. He pushes the door open so forcefully that it slams against the wall and ricochets back at him, splintering the frame, and fuck, he’s gonna have to fix that later, but none of that matters because Sam is sitting up. He’s sitting up and looking at him, legs crossed Indian style in the bed and his hands folded complacently in his lap.  
  
Sam peers at Dean. Dean’s holding his breath, as if the simple act of inhaling might tip the scales in one direction or another. Everything about Sam is familiar in that moment, right down to the tiniest detail: the determination in his small frown, the way he opens his mouth and ticks his jaw to the side, and the hint of a crooked and crowded lower row of teeth. He looks at Dean as if he’s trying to solve a riddle, like Dean is number eighteen across in the _New York Times_ Sunday crossword puzzle and if Sam stares long enough he’ll be able to figure it out. The sight of it flings Dean backward, a decade at least, to this one diner in Missoula where they’d tracked down a poltergeist that had a habit of busting open the hearts of young men. For a second, just one fleeting nostalgic moment, Dean’s mind misfires and he swears he can smell bacon grease and hear the sizzle-pop of frying eggs.  
  
“I know you,” Sam says. He’s hoarse, his voice scraping like old rusted hinges. Sam’s purses his lips, pensive. “I broke your neck.”  
  
Dean falls against the doorframe, knees buckling. The ground rushes up to meet him and he hits the floor hard, teeth clicking together painfully. Splinters from the busted frame pierce through his shirt and puncture his skin. “Sam,” he whispers.  
  
“I thought so. I wasn’t sure.” Sam nods, he looks toward the ceiling and a speculative expression dawns on his face. Dean’s seen this happen uncountable times; Sam’s processing the information. “Good,” Sam says. “That’s…that’s very good.” With that, he turns his back to Dean, sinks into the bed again, draws his legs in close to his body and pulls the blanket snugly over his shoulder.  
  
“Goddamn,” Dean says, badly shaken. He gets up, winces as he pulls his shirt away from his scraped up back. By the time he makes it across the room, Sam’s out cold, fists tucked under his chin and Dean wants to shake him. Yank Sam out of bed and toss cold water in his face. Maybe throw up afterward.  
  
He retraces his steps to the interrogation shack, and shoots up a silent prayer, more out of habit than with any real intent, that he at least remembered to keep the salt lines intact in his hell-bent dash back to his place.  
  
Dean starts before he’s even through the doorway. “I take it you’re sensing that there’s been a disturbance in the Force.” He slams the door so hard it makes to whole place shimmy.  
  
The demon is still struggling, making these wracking cries that sound torn out of its throat. It’s shaking its head, preternaturally fast, fighting the restraints. Small puddles of blood have collected on the floor beside the chair, glinting and black in the shadowed interior of the hut.  
  
“Let me go. Please. Anything. I’ll do anything.”  
  
Dean can smell the thing’s rotten breath when he gets close enough to unlock the restraints, and lets the bolt holding the chains fall to the ground. The sob the demon lets out sounds relieved.  
  
“Not so fast,” Dean says, seeing red, his anger self-righteous and misdirected. Dean tosses the demon to the ground so hard it bounces. Something’s wrong, though: the demon’s neck sits at a slightly unnatural angle, just a little off kilter. That’s permission if Dean has ever seen it and he plants a heel in the thing’s throat, sneering at the satisfying crunch of bones and leaving a muddy boot print on the tender underside of its jaw. The demon gasps, mouth gaping and bloody, and claws impotently at Dean’s ankle.  
  
“Just think, if you’d gone along with the program from the start, you coulda been dead by now,” Dean says, “probably better off for it, too.” Dean shifts his weight, turns on the heel still embedded in the demon’s throat and steps across the body to tinker with a nasty-looking meat hook. Behind him, the demon crawls toward the door, body twisting painfully, reaching for the curved boundary of the devil’s trap.  
  
“Where do you think you’re going?” A voice says from the doorway. It’s calm; there’s a hint of a smile to it and that’s the most frightening thing that Dean has run across in a month. Dean doesn’t have to turn around to know it’s Sam; he bites back a snarl and wonders how someone so big could be so goddamn quiet.  
  
Sam is as solid as a mountain, standing with his feet spread apart and his shoulders back.  
  
The demon’s howls reach a fever pitch and it shrinks back as Sam holds his hand out, fingers splayed. A look of supreme concentration morphs across Sam’s features and his eyes flash hot as cinders. Crackling energy fills the room, standing the short hair at Dean’s nape on end, and for a second Dean thinks that he’s going to do it, that whatever juice it took to house the devil for this many years is still alive and well and within his brother. But then Sam falters, brow bunching up in confusion. Dean approaches him hesitantly, and when he reaches him he wraps his hand around Sam’s wrist and lowers it.  
  
“No, Sam. You can’t do that anymore. That’s over for you.”  
  
Sam shakes him off, easy as swatting a fly, like Dean’s not even there, then tips his head and cracks his neck like a prize fighter heading into the knock out round. He begins to recite an exorcism, definitely not Latin but just as affective. It might be Enochian, It’s very, very old and that’s for damn sure. The demon smokes out, a swirl of inky blackness sinking into the ground, blue lightning threaded through it, leaving a ring of red in its wake.  
  
The only possible way to describe it is that Sam seems to wake up, takes in his surroundings like they are all news to him, then scratches at the back of his head in a way that’s almost timid and unsure. “Ah,” he says. “What was that?”  
  
“That was a good one, Sam.”  
  
“I don’t know what that means,” Sam says, then stumbles out of the building, spinning in a slow circle as if he’s trying to get his bearings. Dean can relate. “Where am I?” Sam asks.  
  
Dean comes up behind him, presses his hand to the small of Sam’s back. Heat bleeds through his shirt and it’s sweat damp, wrinkled and pasted to Sam’s skin. “You’re safe. You’re someplace safe now.”  
  
“I wasn’t before?”  
  
“I wish I knew,” Dean tells him, with a slight pressure on Sam’s back to get him moving.  
  
“There’s this thing. A feeling in my gut,” Sam says, leaning in close to Dean and talking in a conspiratorial whisper, although there’s no one around to bear witness. “I think I’ve been looking for you.”  
  
“Okay,” Dean says cautiously.  
  
“But I don’t know why.“ He looks to Dean then, hopeful, like Dean might just be the one who has all the answers. “Who are you?”  
  
The hits just keep on coming. Dean’s been crazy to expect anything less than that. “I’m—I’m Dean.”  
  
When they step away from the hut and its bloody remains, the sun is bright and the sky’s a faded shade of blue, like the color of old, soft denim. Not a cloud in sight. Birds are singing like they don’t have a care in the universe. It’s not exactly the backdrop that Dean expected to see when what is left of his world goes crashing down around his feet.  
  
“I’m hungry,” Sam says.  
  
Dean balls his fist in front of his mouth to hide the strange laughter that has smacked into him out of nowhere, knows it would come out hysterical and insane. Even still, it’s good to have a problem he can fix.  
  
“C’mon,” he says, taking Sam by the elbow and switching direction on him, heading toward the camp kitchen. “Let’s get you fed.”  


 

  
  
The mess hall is deserted. Sam seems wiped out, terribly disoriented, so Dean gets him situated on one of the low benches, sets him up so that his back is to the corner.  
  
“Don’t go anywhere,” Dean says, and puts a gallon jug of water in front of him. “Hydrate.”  
  
Sam’s looks around the open space, taking in the rows of tables lined up like soldiers and the rough-hewn rafters of the ceiling. “Where would I go?” he asks as Dean heads toward the kitchen.  
  
Dean dashes into the kitchen and nearly falls bodily over Chuck, who’s hunkered down in front of the industrial shelving, counting cans.  
  
“A little warning mighta been nice,” Chuck gripes, wiping his dusty hands on the seat of his pants.  
  
“It’s Sam,” Dean says.  
  
Chuck flinches. “Oh god, Dean. Is he?”  
  
“He’s awake, and he’s fine. Well,” Dean muses, as he scans the shelves. “ _Fine_ might not be the right word for it, but he’s Sam. More or less.”  
  
Chuck’s twitchy, almost vibrating. “A bit of advice: you might want to lead with the ‘fine’ part next time. This is pretty important information. What do you mean by more or less?”  
  
“He’s not too sure where he is, or who he is, or who I am for that matter. Still knows how to dispatch a demon very effectively, though.” Dean picks up the biggest can of chicken soup on the planet, casts around for a pan and dumps it in. Bending over to light the stove, he says, “Keep an eye on him for a sec, would ya?”  
  
“Looks like someone beat me to it,” Chuck says, nodding toward the open doorway.  
  
Cas is sitting beside Sam, his cane placed on the table in front of him. He’s spinning it idly with his fingers and talking to Sam. He catches Dean’s eye and shakes his head the smallest amount.  
  
When Dean makes a break for it, Chuck holds him back.  
  
“Give him a minute,” Chuck says. “Cas might have a…a bit of a unique perspective.”  
  
Cas talks to Sam for a few minutes longer. Dean grits his teeth and waits it out, staring daggers at them the entire time. He’s able to draw a deep breath again when Cas rises and limps in his direction, his expression as enigmatic as ever.  
  
“It’s Sam,” Cas states with conviction.  
  
“Hell of a newsflash you got there,” Dean says.  
  
Cas rolls his eyes. “What I mean is that he’s not Lucifer.”  
  
“Get ‘em while they’re hot,” Dean counters. He looks over Cas’s shoulder at Sam, who’s staring with intent at a spot about two feet over his head.  
  
Chuck asks, “How sure are you?”  
  
Cas seems to consider it for a second. “On a scale of one to ten, I’d give it a seven. The memory loss is puzzling.” Cas rubs at his bottom lip, a gesture that is still disconcertingly human. “It’ll be interesting to learn the extent of it.”  
  
“Listen,” Dean says, a fierce protectiveness hitting him all at once. “Sam isn’t some sorta science fair project. The guy had the devil banging around his head for over four years. Some stuff is bound to break loose. He’ll come back. We’ll find a way to jog his memory and—“  
  
“I wouldn’t advise that,” Cas interrupts. “We don’t know what made Sam say yes to Lucifer.”  
  
“It was me. It was my fault,” Dean says. Sam is the one most responsible for the world taking a nosedive, and Dean’s not too sure what it says about him that he’s still making excuses for the kid.  
  
“Your enormous guilt complex aside,” Cas continues, “the fact remains that if he did it once—“  
  
“—then he could do it again,” Chuck finishes.  
  
They’re right. Dean hates that they’re right. “Maybe Sam found a way to beat him.”  
  
“Or maybe he found a way to bring Lucifer to your doorstep,” Chuck points out, “to Michael’s only remaining vessel.”  
  
Cas cuts in. “Or maybe Lucifer still has eyes and ears on Sam, and by bringing him in here we’ve basically signed a death warrant for everyone living in this place.”  
  
“And maybe I’ve heard one too many ‘maybe’s.’” Dean says, glancing at Sam again. He’s still zonked out on that one specific spot. “Cas, you didn’t give him anything, did you?”  
  
Cas holds up his hands, all innocent offense. “I only offered him uppers, to help with the grogginess. He didn’t take them.”  
  
Dean wipes a tired hand over his eyes.  “The former devil shows up and you offer him methamphetamines. Real stand-up operation we have going here.”  
  
A bowl of soup hugged to his chest, Dean makes his way back to Sam. Chuck and Cas follow and sit on either side of Dean.  
  
“Thanks,” Sam whispers. He hunches over the bowl and his hair spills into his face, and Dean has to fight the bizarre urge to tuck it behind his ears for him.  
  
Dean speaks in quiet tones, like Sam is some sorta skittish animal about to bolt at any second. “Do you know where you are?”  
  
“I keep waiting for someone to tell me,” Sam answers. He sounds so much like the sarcastic teenager he once was that Dean’s whole body aches with it.  
  
“You’re at a camp. We’re all hunters. You’re safe. Do you know who you are?”  
  
“Not particularly, but I’m working on getting used to that,” Sam says, impatient.  
  
“Do you know how you got here?” Chuck asks.  
  
“I was looking for him.” Sam levels his gaze directly at Dean, stabbing his spoon in his direction. “I know you. How do I know you?”  
  
Dean stutters, and every impulse in him is commanding him to tell the truth. For once in his life, just tell the goddamn truth. “We’re—“ Cas jabs him hard in the side, wakes up the injury to his ribs that he’d sustained a few months back. He never thought that he’d end up taking lessons in subterfuge from a former angel of the Lord. Dean shoots Cas a murderous look and says, “We’re old friends. Kinda grew up together.”  
  
“Makes sense. As much as anything does right now.”  
  
The door bangs open and Nate walks in, a shocked look slapping across his face the instant he sees Sam. At any other time, Dean might find it downright comical, but this isn’t any other time. “Can I help you?”  
  
Nate makes a strangled sound and rushes toward the kitchen. He’s about to go on watch if the assault rifle strapped to his back is any indication.  
  
Dean turns his attention back to Sam. “Do you remember anything else? Anything at all? C’mon, man. Give me something.”  
  
“I remember a lot of things.”  
  
“Any specifics?” Dean urges, ignoring the warning looks he’s getting from Chuck and Cas.  
  
Nate appears from the kitchen again, heading back toward the door at a near sprint.  
  
“Hey,” Sam says. “Can I see your weapon?”  
  
Dean tenses, nods anyway when Nate looks to him for approval.  
  
Straightening his posture, Sam runs his eyes appreciatively up and down the length of the rifle, the same way that Dean might look at a pretty girl. Then he locks eyes with Dean, places the rifle on the table and proceeds to field strip it twice as fast as anyone in camp could ever hope to do. He reassembles it just as quickly. His eyes never leave Dean. Not once.  
  
“That’s pretty impressive, soldier,” Nate says when Sam hands the weapon back to him.  
  
“Yeah,” Dean mutters, “he learned it from the best." 

Over the next few days, there are times when Sam seems okay, normal and fairly well adjusted, all things considered. This is not one of those times. Dean wakes up to Sam thrashing hard enough to slam the metal rails of the bed against the wall. There’s a sound, high-pitched and keening and at first Dean’s muzzy mind translates it into some sorta air raid siren winding up, but then everything clicks into place. Sam’s scream cuts off and he starts shouting instead, incoherent, with the rhythm and inflection of speech but it’s no language that Dean’s ever heard.

Dean topples from his bed and throws himself on top of Sam. Sam’s bed lets out a death squawk under the weight of both of them as he frames Sam’s hips with his thighs and presses Sam’s shoulders against the mattress. It’s cold, unusually cold. The air feels like a smack in the center of Dean’s bare chest, but Sam is burning up beneath him, t-shirt soaked through and his hair pasted to his head with sweat. He bucks up under Dean with all the force of a rodeo bronco.

“Stay with me, Sam. Fuck. Jesus,” Dean grunts with the effort of holding Sam in place, almost jumps out of his skin when Sam opens his eyes and fixes him with a stare in the dark. “You’re not going anywhere. I just got you back.”

Sam gapes for an instant then thrashes out, his efforts doubled. He wrestles his arm free of Dean’s grasp and hits him hard, a sucker punch right to the jaw, hard enough that flashes of white jolt across Dean’s vision.

“You’re going to apologize for that later,” Dean tells him, and yanks Sam up to a sitting position.

The slight change in altitude does the trick. Sam blinks, once, twice, three times. “You were gone, you left me.”

“I’m right the fuck here,” Dean says, rubbing at his jaw. The skin feels warm, prickly, the tingle of a new bruise rising to the surface. When he ticks his jaw back and forth nothing seems broken. “Besides, you left first.” It’s a cheap shot. His jaw is really starting to pound and he’s working on the mother of all headaches and he can’t help but think it’s at least a little justified.

Sam falls back on the bed again to a metallic clunk, something in the frame falls apart and the mattress lists strongly to starboard. Dean rolls with it until his face is inches away from Sam’s and his ass is planted firmly against Sam’s thighs.

“That sucks.” Sam says, and Dean’s not sure if he’s referring to the bed or Dean’s jaw. Dean counts either one as a win.

Sam smiles at him then, a full on blazing grin, and a thought occurs to Dean, settles into him with the bell-clear ring of truth. All of this time, all of these years of fuck ups and frustration and sacrifice, and Dean’s never gotten tired of looking at Sam. He doesn’t think it’s possible.

“What happened?” Dean asks.

“I think the bed broke,” Sam answers, matter-of-fact.

“No, before.”

Sam draws in a deep breath, his ribs expanding under Dean’s palms. It’s a good feeling. Vital.

“Desert sagebrush, also known as common wormwood,” Sam starts. “ _Artemesia tridentata._ Animals don’t like to eat it--it smells like paint thinner. Boil the seeds, and it can cure a headache. Boil the leaves and it can dye wool yellow. It smells sweet when it burns, and it burns hot.”

Dean sits back, his eyes not leaving Sam’s face. “Why is that important?”

Sam runs his hands along the tops of Dean’s thighs. He starts tracing absent circles with his thumbs and Dean would think that’s crazy, except he’s been caught little off guard from the bigger kinda crazy coming out of Sam’s mouth.

“It’s how you build a fire in the desert.”

“Alright, Sam. I’ll bite. Why do we need to build a fire in the desert?”

“To get rid of the bodies.” Sam states it like it’s obvious, like everybody is simply born with that sort of demented knowledge.

Dean’s up like a shot, a cannonball banging around in his stomach. Sam makes a grab for him and misses.

“Not you,” Sam says, levering himself up to a canted sitting position. He props his elbows on his knees covers his face with his hands, muffling what he says next. “I never meant you.”

“Who, then?” Dean asks, and doesn’t like the hysterical note in his voice. “‘Cause this isn’t the kinda thing you can just spring on a guy.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Great. That’s…that’s great, Sam.”

Sam drops his hands and looks at Dean, stare so sharp it could cut Dean clean in two. “Do you think I actually _want_ this?” His voice breaks at the end and he hunches in on himself. “I wake up every morning and I have no idea where I am. There are strangers everywhere, and some of them look at me like they know me. Like they expect something from me. And what about all the things I can’t seem to forget? Bodies burning. People on fire. Demons on their knees.”

Dean takes a few slow steps across the room, starts to reach toward Sam, but lets his hand fall to his side instead.

“Then there’s the other stuff,” Sam continues. “Sometimes you’ll say something or laugh in a certain way and it’s so familiar, like I should know it, and maybe I could. It seems like it’s all right here. Like it’s just over my shoulder, and if I could turn around fast enough and squint my eyes in exactly the right way, then I could see it. But I’m not fast enough. And—“ Sam cuts off, darts his hands out to clutch at Dean’s hips. He digs his fingers in hard enough to leave a mark and Dean lets him. "And I hate when you leave me alone. You walk out that door and it feels like a piece of me gets ripped out. Something essential. Every single time.”

Dean’s been on the other side of this argument, knows from experience that it’s a god awful place to be. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “I promise.”

Sam heaves a huge, watery sigh and leans into Dean. His face is hot against Dean’s stomach and his arms are like metal bands around Dean’s waist as he squeezes tighter and tighter. Dean bends over him and crosses his arms around Sam’s shoulders. He grabs fistfuls of Sam’s shirt and holds on. For the first time in five years, Dean hugs his brother. He can’t for the life of him figure out why he waited so long.

The truth is that he doesn’t want Sam to remember. Not anymore. He knows this is no kinda life for the guy, skipping through the last five years like some demented version of _Quantum Leap_ , but the alternative is worse by about a mile. Scratch that, worse by light years. Dean can rationalize it easy. Living in this screwed up car crash of a world is bad enough, but Sam doesn’t know anything else, and that has to be a kindness. Sam doesn’t remember unbroken highways and hot showers and quickie marts. He has no recollection of baseball games and Black Sabbath shows and big box stores and food that doesn’t come from a can. Or being able to walk into any bar in these United States and get a tequila with lime served up by a pretty bartender with a set of legs that go straight up to heaven and straight back down again. So okay, sure, Dean doesn’t want him to remember and maybe that makes him some sort of controlling whack job, but Dean’s willing to live with that. He’s willing to live with a lot.  


 

  
  
The best kind of way to build a lie is to keep the story simple. To everybody at Camp Chitaqua, he’s Sam Hagar, an old friend of the family who’d heard tell of Dean’s set up here, and had come to join this merry band of brothers. He’d had a rough go of it in the past few months, had seen a few things that set him a bit left of center and now he’s a little hair triggered. It’s best to leave him alone and ignore anything that might come out of his mouth. Folks get it. Everyone’s at least a little shell shocked around here. They all have their own particular version of the thousand yard stare.  
  
Dean’s spent the last week hiding Sam in plain sight, watching every move Sam makes and waiting for the inevitable fallout. It’s exhausting.  
  
“What am I supposed to do?” Sam’s sprawled out on Dean’s bed, reading material and the detritus of his breakfast spread around him like a moat. “Sit around here and let you bring me three squares a day, read back issues of magazines? I’ve seen the way everybody looks at me, like I’m some sort of landmine, ready to blow up at any second.”  
  
Dean huffs in frustration. They’ve been bickering for the better part of the morning, and it’s clear that it’s the cabin fever talking. “Okay,” he says. “You’re right. You wanna see what the world has turned into? I’ll show you.” He stops, fist clenched too tight around the collar of his coat. “Last chance. One more shot to back out.”  
  
But Sam’s already on his feet, determination in the strict line of his mouth. “No, we’re going.”  
  
The camp is a busy hive this morning, repairs are a constant menace, the kitchen works almost around the clock, supplies need to be rationed and divvied out, fences mended and the perimeter constantly guarded. Dean waves off a myriad of questions as they cross to the rear of the camp.  
  
Sam’s steps stutter. Ahead of them, the Impala sits quietly rusting among the weeds and tall grass. The hood’s dinged, propped open, the front and back axles exposed like rusty, knobby knee bones. One of the back windows is busted out. The old girl’s an emptied out shell, scavenged time and again for spare parts to keep the Hummers and Jeeps going, vehicles more well suited for the end of the world.  
  
Dean doesn't like coming this way. In the distance, through the diamond link of the fence line, Kansas City smolders away, nothing more than a smudge of red on the horizon. He sets the sight of the car to his back and doubles his pace toward the fence.  
  
“You okay?” he asks Sam.  
  
“Yeah. For a minute there…” Sam trails off, then rips his sight away from the car. “I don’t know. I kinda lost myself.”  
  
“But you’re back now,” Dean says, cautious.  
  
“I think so. Or as much as I usually am.”  
  
Dean’s grown pretty fond of this new version of his brother, the occasional insanity notwithstanding. This one doesn’t hold grudges for one, doesn’t roll his eyes at all of Dean’s tired jokes, or bitch at Dean for bringing home the wrong kind of salad dressing. He doesn’t remember Jess, or Stanford or their father. He doesn’t remember Ruby or Dean at his worst. He’s a fresh start: Dean’s chance to take all of his previous fuck ups and unfuck them.  
  
Dean prattles on as they walk, explaining the watch schedule to Sam. Their perimeter is constantly monitored, even if it’s lightly guarded. “We don’t have the right kinda manpower to do the job the way it needs to be done. Then again, if we did scrape up enough people to cover all our bases, then we wouldn’t be able to feed them.”  
  
“When was the last time you had someone—“ Sam stops, correcting himself, “—or something break through?”  
  
Drumming his fingers on his thigh, Dean wants to say _A couple of weeks ago, and it was you,_ but he holds back. Instead he shrugs. “Few of weeks back. Real clusterfuck, too. A dozen croats bust through the fence line on the southeast side. We lost two people that night.” He leaves the most damning part of it out, everything that happened after. How Nate had delivered two of their very own men to Dean, both of them sporting matching bloody slices on their shoulders, and how they’d kneeled in front of him, hands tied behind their backs, and the way they’d flinched when the cool muzzle of his gun had touched the back of their necks, right at the base of their skulls.  
  
Sam’s hand falls on the nape of Dean’s neck, and it’s like he knows, like he can see into the nightmare of Dean’s thoughts and touch him in the same exact spot that he’d pointed the business end of his gun on those poor saps. Those two men whose only crime had been to follow Dean’s orders.  
  
It never fails to surprise Dean, the lengths that he will go in order to protect his own.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Sam says.  
  
“Yeah, well, don’t be,” Dean shoots back, but he doesn’t smack Sam’s hand away, just lets Sam keep it there, rubbing his thumb along Dean’s short hair, his hand warm and steady and reassuring.  
  
Changing the subject on a dime, Sam says, “So, Cas.”  
  
“What about him?”  
  
“Have you known him long? There’s something about him that I can’t quite put my finger on.”  
  
Dean smiles at that. “Yeah. Stick around long enough and you’ll find out that’s one thing that’s never gonna change. But I’ve known him a long time. Long as I’ve known anyone who’s still around. Except you, of course. Cas did me a huge favor once, pulled my ass out of the frying pan, so to speak. You can say that we were soldiers together.”  
  
“Maybe one day you’ll be able to say the same thing about me,” Sam says, finally dropping his hand from Dean’s neck with a slow trail of fingers on skin.  
  
“I already can.”  
  
Sam stares at him but Dean doesn't continue. Finally Sam asks, “What was I like? Y’know, before?”  
  
Dean takes his time coming up with an answer for that. Sam’s question is like quicksand, and Dean has a feeling he’s already up to his waist in it. “Brave. You’re the bravest man I know, and I’ve known quite a few.”  
  
Sam ducks his head, hiding a small smile that he tries to wipe away.  
  
Dean scuffs Sam’s hair with his knuckles. “Stupid and reckless sometimes,” he goes on. “Smart, too. So fucking smart. Give you a library and some weird symbol to cipher out, and some people to save.” Dean cuts off then, thinking that maybe he’d already gone too far. “I don’t know. How do you describe a person? It’s impossible.”  
  
Distraction comes in the form of crunching leaves and snapping twigs. He pulls Sam up short, backs up to a wide tree trunk and tugs Sam in tight against him, drawing his gun out of his jacket. The birds have gone quiet and thankfully Sam has too. Dean has taken them out further than he intended to, and now they’re close to the boundary, the fence line visible through the breaks in the trees.  
  
Dean’s on edge. He shouldn’t have taken Sam out this far. He’s got more than one back to protect these days.  
  
“Is it one of ours?” Dean asks, hardly even a whisper and barely moving his lips. Sam’s eyes have gone wide, his chest moving against Dean’s, breath fast and spiked with surprise.  
  
After a tense shake of his head, Sam whispers, “Eleven o’clock.”  
  
Slowly, carefully, Dean edges around the tree trunk, rough bark scraping his back. It’s a croat alright, a formerly middle-aged man in the ripped up dregs of a business suit. He’s filthy, his mouth crusted with old, dark colored blood. It’s a hard call, Dean’s got a clear shot on him but no silencer, and the sound of a gunshot would be like the clarion call of a church bell to any other infected in the area. The thing’s scenting the air, mouth dropped open and his wreck of a face tilted upward.  
  
Sam crowds in even closer, pinning Dean against the tree, slips his hand beneath Dean’s jacket and angles it downward. Dean goes rigid, gives Sam the mother of all stink eyes, but Sam doesn’t notice, intent on the croat’s slow progress as it inches ever closer toward them. Sam’s made it to his waistband, movements like the slow drip of molasses, his bottom lip trapped between his teeth.  
  
Sam’s face is beside Dean’s, his skin soft along Dean’s cheek. Sam’s hair tickles Dean’s nose, his shallow breath brushing against Dean’s ear and for one long, convoluted second Dean thinks Sam’s about to kiss him. It’s a whole new level of fucked up, the way Dean’s heart leaps into his throat when he thinks about how easy it would be. Sam’s _right here_ , so close that the cut of his jaw drags against Dean’s mouth. Screw it. Screw all of it. Dean wants it to happen.  
  
Sam presses one leg between Dean’s, slowly shifting up and in and heat zips along Dean’s spine. Sam shifts incrementally, fingers finding what he was after as he unlatches the snap on Dean’s thigh holster and pulls a knife free.  
  
Turns out that letting the devil ride him bareback for the last few years didn’t do anything to fuck up Sam’s aim. He steps out from behind the tree and in one smooth, fluid motion lets the knife fly. It lands with the meaty thunk, right in the center of the croat’s throat and it crumples right away, clawing uselessly at it’s own neck, fingers slipping on the handle of the knife.  
  
Sam approaches it, wrenches the knife out and wipes it clean on the sleeve of the croat’s suit, then walks back to Dean. Sam tips forward again, plants his forearm against the tree trunk just above Dean’s head and slots the knife back into Dean’s holster.  
  
The smile that Sam gives Dean is treacherous, something close to feral in its single-minded intensity.  
  
Dean’s still all jammed up, not confident enough in the strength of his legs to try walking, some vague panic brightening the edges of his sight.  
  
“Show off,” Dean says, a begrudging sort of pride making him smile back.  
  
“Just wanted to prove that I could pull my weight around here.”  
  
Sunlight filters through the canopy of leaves, streaks Sam’s hair a little red and makes his eyes incredibly bright. Sam’s flushed from adrenaline, minutely shaking from it, small tremors that Dean can feel in all the places they’re touching. Kissing him still sounds like the best idea Dean’s had in a very long time.  
  
Instead, Dean clears his throat, flattens his hand in the center of Sam’s chest and gives him a slight push. “Let’s keep moving,” he says. “Croats are like cockroaches. There’s never just one.”  
  


 

  
  
Dean walks out of Headquarters, stretches and works the kinks out of his back that he’s earned from hunching over maps for the last hour. The sun has sunk below the horizon and set the sky on fire, the clouds red and scattered like blood spatter. Dean squints into it and tries to remember that old saying about red skies at night. He’s seeing omens everywhere these days.  
  
Sam’s not in the cabin when Dean gets there. He’s left a plate of half-eaten food on the table, some dime-store paperback open and face down beside it. A flash of fear gives way to irritation when Dean sees that his spare army jacket is missing from the hook and his Glock has disappeared from his bedside table. Whatever Sam is up to, at least he’s not doing it unprotected.  
  
Dean digs inside his jacket for his pistol and pops the clip to check it. He taps it against the muzzle one time for good luck then clicks it back in before heading back outside.  
  
The first person he runs across is the Reverend, who’s got a bag of laundry slung over one shoulder and his rifle over the other. Strange days they’re living in, when a man can’t go out to wash his underwear unless he’s armed to the teeth.  
  
“Passed Sam a few minutes ago,” Sonny says by way of greeting. “Heading that way,” he continues, hiking his thumb to the south.  
  
Dean mutters his thanks and takes one step in that direction before Sonny pulls him up short.  
  
“What is it with you and him?”  
  
“What do you mean?” Dean asks.  
  
“You’re different nowadays. I don’t think I’d seen you smile once before Sam showed up.” Sonny fixes him with a sideways stare, a smile spreading across his weathered face. “Now, I don’t really have anything against that sorta thing. Judge not and all that.”  
  
“It’s not like that,” Dean tells him, but it sounds like a feeble excuse.  
  
“What’s it like, then?”  
  
Dean thinks about Sam pressed up all along the front of him, the feeling of Sam’s hand finding its way to his waistband, the soft fall of Sam’s breath on his neck.  
  
“It’s complicated,” he says.  
  
Parsons starts to chuckle and Dean doesn’t stick around to hear what else he might have to say.  
  
It’s as if Sam runs on autopilot sometimes, independent of conscious thought or memory. After a few minutes of searching, Dean finds Sam in the passenger seat of the decrepit Impala, hands folded in his lap and staring blankly out of the grimy windshield.  
  
The way the driver’s door hangs crookedly and by a thread gives Dean actual physical pain when he opens it. The interior of the car smells like rotting upholstery and some creature has taken it upon itself to build a nest in the backseat.  
  
“Hey,” Dean says, then settles into the driver’s seat with a wince. He wraps his hand around the steering wheel, feels the cracked leather give a little bit.  
  
“Hey,” Sam parrots back.  
  
“Making a run. Might get a little violent. Caught word that nest of demons has something that belongs to me.”  
  
“What’s that?”  
  
“A gun. A very old, very important gun.”  
  
“Must be a hell of a weapon,” Sam says.  
  
“Took out my fair share of demons and vamps with it,” Dean tells him with a certain amount of self-satisfaction. “They say this gun can kill anything. Maybe even the devil.” He watches Sam closely when he says it, testing him, waiting for some sort of reaction. Sam chews on the inside of his cheek but his expression remains passive, and Dean’s not sure if that’s a pass or a fail. Dean goes on, “Heading out in the morning, taking Risa and Nate. Are you in?”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
“I’d rather have you at my back than any ten of these other guys.”  
  
Sam grins at him, and it’s the best thing Dean’s seen all day. “Yeah, I’m in.” Leaves that have collected in the foot well crackle when Sam shifts his feet. He runs his hand along the dashboard, almost petting it. “This car was yours, right?”  
  
“Yeah, used to be. Had to give her up. Wait—is something coming back?”  
  
Sam shakes his head. “Not really, no. It’s just...it feels like you in here.”  
  
Dean lets out a bark of laughter and wishes it didn’t sound so bitter. “What? Busted apart and well past its prime?”  
  
“No,” Sam scoffs and smacks the side of Dean’s thigh with the back of his hand. He leaves it there, begins to restlessly brush his knuckles against Dean’s jeans. “More like comfortable. Safe. Right where we’re supposed to be.”  
  
“Prettiest car on the road in her heyday. Got us through more fixes than I can count. I wish you could remember—“  
  
Sam cuts him off. “Do you? Do you really?”  
  
“Yeah, Sam. Of course.” He doesn’t look at Sam as he says it. It’s easier that way. He reaches down and squeezes Sam’s hand like it’s supposed to prove some kinda point, set the lie in stone and make Sam believe it.  
  
“Okay. Good,” Sam says, and there’s a ring of finality to it, as if he’s putting an end to an argument that Dean didn’t know they were having. “You should fix her up. Get her on the road again.”  
  
“One of these days, maybe.” Dean doesn’t like the way his heart feels at this moment, all knocked out of place and pounding too hard.  
  
“You miss this car.”  
  
“I miss a lot of things,” Dean says, and then, quietly, “You have no idea.”  
  
Sam pulls him in fast, his face warm where it’s notched into the crook of Dean’s neck. He should tell Sam that this isn’t what they do, that this sorta physical contact is reserved for long absences or near death experiences, but Sam smells so good, and he’s so solid smashed along Dean’s side. It’s only going to be a minute, maybe less, before the outside world or Dean’s better judgement intervenes, and it’s a conscious decision on Dean’s part to make good on what he’s got for as long as he’s got it. He buries his hand in Sam’s hair, right at the base of his skull, and holds on, hears Sam’s breath catch in his throat. Sam shifts until not even a sliver of space remains between them. He noses at the patch of skin behind Dean’s ear and opens his mouth against Dean’s neck. The kiss is like a brand, an invisible mark that Dean hopes to carry for the remainder of his days.  
  
Sam works his lips slowly up Dean’s neck, follows the line of Dean’s jaw and Dean tips his head back. He lets his eyes fall closed, dangerously wrapped up in the heat of his brother’s mouth. Sam palms Dean’s cheek and his hand is soft, which comes as a surprise to Dean even though it shouldn’t. It’s not like the devil ever had to do any of his own heavy lifting.  
  
That thought is enough to bring Dean back to the here and now, and he stops Sam with a small tug to his hair. Dean tries to rationalize it, strike some kind of bargain with his stupid, reckless heart. This thing with Sam is dangerous, all tripwires and hand grenades. Dean curls his fingers in Sam’s hair to hold him steady and kisses him, hard and fast, like a parting blow, then pulls back. He scrapes his bottom lip through his teeth, sucks it into his mouth and tastes Sam. _His brother_.  
  
“Jesus,” Dean says, his head spinning.  
  
Sam’s still touching his face, dragging the pad of his thumb along Dean’s cheekbone. The feel of it puts cracks in Dean’s already fragile resolve, so he takes Sam’s hand in his own. Sam kisses the side of his wrist and there’s a question in his eyes, a bright flush on his face and his lips are open, slack and wet. He makes a noise, this half-sigh that shouldn’t be as sexy as it is.  
  
“Cut it out,” Dean tells him, harsher than he means to be.  
  
“What the...” Sam trails off, confusion replacing the heat in his expression. Dean’s a hair’s breadth away from taking it all back, shoving Sam backward onto the seat and following him down.  
  
“We’re--” Dean stops, takes the time to reconsider. He gets out of the car, slams the door closed and is rewarded by the abortive clunk of the latch misaligning, as if even the car is disappointed in him. Out of habit, he glances across the fence line. All’s clear.  
  
Sam’s not giving him an out and follows him, leans against the car and hooks his heel on the back bumper, like he’s done a million times before. His hands are buried in the pockets of his coat and he looks down, his hair covering his eyes. He gives Dean a sideways glance, his tongue curling thoughtfully around his canine tooth, and that’s another thing he’s done a million times before.  
  
“This isn’t us,” Dean says.  
  
“Then what is it?” Sam asks.  
  
There are a lot of things that Dean wants to say. He wants to call it a big fucking mistake, the product of a claustrophobic life smothered in nobody but each other, or some dicey decision brought on by years of living in foxholes. Instead he says, “I wish I could tell you. C’mon. Big day tomorrow. Early start.”  
  
“Wait,” Sam says, pushing away from the car. “Am I coming with you? Because.” He makes an all encompassing gesture.  
  
“Not gonna let you sleep in the car, if that’s what you’re asking,” Dean says, already moving in the direction of the cabin. He’s dizzy, exhausted, vaguely nauseated, and his body seems to be staging some sort of revolt because the only thing he really wants to do is kiss his brother.  
  


 

  
  
The smell of old rot shocks Dean back into consciousness quicker than smelling salts. He’s being hauled bodily across the floor, boot heels scraping and bouncing on the ground. Someone’s got him by the back of his collar and he isn’t able to catch a full breath to save his life. He can’t reckon up from down, his vision fuzzy and indistinct. Sam’s calling his name, but it sounds very far away, watery and shifting, might as well be coming from the bottom of the ocean. Dean struggles, lashes out and gets a face full of linoleum for his efforts. He claws at it, tries to make it to his feet but gets yanked up instead, skewing his already shaky balance. He winds up running sideways, tripping over his own feet and banging his elbow against something hard. A metallic echo is drowned out by the panic-inducing sound of shattering glass and pain shoots up and down Dean’s arm, renders his hand temporarily limp and useless.  
  
“Keep it together,” Sam says, desperation making his voice tight, and okay, alright, Sam’s the one with the death grip on the back of his jacket. Good thing to know.  
  
The rapid-fire racket of an automatic weapon goes off behind them and Dean’s instincts take over, his senses kicking in with sharp clarity. Dead fluorescent lights above him, rows and rows of metal shelving on either side, scavenged a long time ago, the sound of pounding feet behind him. The smell of ancient produce left to rot. They’re in a grocery store, and for one lunatic moment Dean wants to laugh. They’re in a hell-bent dash toward the heavy metal door to the back office, and right it now looks like the motherfucking pearly gates to heaven. Sam yanks the door open and tosses Dean inside, turns and squeezes off three rounds before slamming the door and setting the lock.  
  
He doesn’t even pause to catch his breath before he’s all over Dean, eyes wide with fear, propping Dean’s back to the door and checking for injuries. A second later, something collides against it with a force so strong that Dean’s teeth rattle and he trips forward a step.  
  
The last half an hour comes back to Dean in fits and starts. Their progress into town, an unavoidable hot zone about at the halfway point to their rendezvous with the nest. He remembers Sam sitting by his side in the back of the Hummer, twitchy with pent up nervous energy. It had been too quiet, the streets almost too clear of rubble and debris. They’d turned a corner and had run into a herd of croats, a dozen of the motherfuckers in front and more spilling out from the surrounding buildings on the side, creating a bottleneck of bodies. The gun mounted on the back of the vehicle had jammed. Damn thing was always breaking down and there was no reason for this time to be any different. He and Nate had jumped out onto the street, intent on clearing them a path through the mess and it was about then that he’d felt something crash into the back of his head. Lights out after that.  
  
“God. Fuck,” Sam’s saying. He pushes Dean’s shirt up and presses along his ribs, prods at the small lump forming on the back of his skull. “Are you hurt? Nate was supposed to cover your back. It shoulda been me. I never would have let it happen. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”  
  
“It’s okay. Not your fault. Just got my bell rung a little, that’s all.” Dean tries to shake off a nagging blurry spot in his peripheral vision. “Where are the others?”  
  
“Took off. I dunno. I sorta lost track after I saw you go down. You just crumpled and I couldn’t get there quick enough.” Sam’s talking faster and faster, starts to pace the floor, his vague, shadowy form lit by a small window high up on the cinder block wall. He takes long strides, dodging knocked over file cabinets and kicking at strewn papers. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. What if something happened? What if I didn’t get to you in time? Jesus, Dean. Just. Don’t be so reckless. Okay? You’re the only person I have. You’re all I got.”  
  
“I’m not going anywhere,” Dean tells him. “I promised. Remember?”  
  
With a visible effort, Sam tries to ground himself, coming to a stop in front of Dean, exhaling a long, slow breath and squaring his shoulders. A muscle in his jaw ticks. “Of course I remember. How could I forget?”  
  
Dean feels like he’s falling from a very great height, and it’s not from the blow to the head. He hooks a hand around Sam’s neck. “Come here.”  
  
“Wait. What?” Sam spits out. “But last night you said--”  
  
“Forget what I said. Remember the rest of it if you want to, but forget that.”  
  
He pulls Sam in the rest of the way and kisses him, nips and bites at Sam’s lips, feels a shock at the first tentative touch of Sam’s tongue against his own that runs a straightaway down to his cock. He angles his head, licks in deeper, and swallows down the taste of Sam, strange and familiar all at once.  
  
Sam takes a second to respond, stunned still for a moment, then he finds Dean’s hips and latches on to them, tugging them in tight against his own. Dean’s trapped, shoulders levered against the cool metal door and the front of him along Sam’s warm body. He’s pretty sure there are at least two croats on the other side of that reinforced steel, and right now that doesn’t matter. Not one bit. What _does_ matter is the way Sam draws Dean’s leg up to hook around his waist and bends Dean exactly the way he wants him. And that near perfect pressure as Sam rocks into him, and the sound of Sam’s voice as he groans, all gravelly and wicked as sin.  
  
It’s weird, but it’s the good kind of weird as Dean mouths at the cut of Sam’s jaw and down the long, exposed line of his throat, Sam’s stubble rough on his lips. The fact that Sam’s a guy plays second fiddle to all the rest; Dean only has the energy and willpower to deal with one existential crisis at a time.  
  
Dean’s jeans feel too tight, the friction as they move together almost enough to get him there but not quite. He wants to strip Sam down, take his time, figure out exactly what makes Sam tick and do it over and over again.  
  
Sam snakes a hand between them, his face set with a dark smile, and works open the top button on Dean’s jeans, just enough to get inside and palm his cock through his boxers. Sam kisses him again, nothing tentative or shy about it this time, pulls off and whispers, fast and immediate, “C’mon. C’mon, Dean.”  
  
It does the trick. Dean bucks forward, his cock pulsing against Sam’s hand, spunk hot and thick and shooting up the inside of Sam’s wrist. The wind gets knocked out of Dean and he thinks about repaying the favor, but Sam’s already shuddering against him, hips moving in tiny bursts and hissing through his clenched teeth.  
  
Dean works on getting his breath under control and waits for the soul-crushing guilt to kick in. It never does. The building doesn’t fall down on them, the wrathful fist of God doesn’t descend from heaven to deliver a celestial right hook. The planet doesn’t go spinning into oblivion and the world isn’t ending any more than usual. It’s just him and Sam, and it’s exactly how it’s always been. Something huge builds in Dean’s chest as he thinks about all their shared history, all that time wasted.  
  
As if reading his mind, Sam says, “Are you gonna freak out now?”  
  
Dean starts to answer, but he’s interrupted by the low, guttural sound of an approaching engine. Sam’s up in a flash, and hauls Dean to his feet. He takes out a croat before the door is open six inches, and he takes out another before they reach the shattered plate glass window at the front of the store, just in time to watch Nate and Risa--and their ride out of town--pass them by.  
  
“Just so you know,” Dean states calmly, “ _now_ I’m gonna freak out. Then I’m gonna kill them.”  
  
The look Sam directs at the Humvee as it speeds away is thunderous, the kind of look that could lay waste to cities. “I’ll do it for you, so you don’t have to.”  
  
“Is that the crazy in you talking, or is that you?”  
  
“Not too sure. Can I get back to you on that?”  
  


 

A few blocks off of the main drag, the town abruptly becomes residential, houses stacked side-by-side like cardboard cut-outs. It’s a shining example of middle class suburbia stuck in a time capsule, but look a little closer and the signs of abandonment are clear. Kids’ toys still litter overgrown lawns, front doors hang open, garage doors, too, exposing empty, dim interiors that have mostly been picked clean.

Sam and Dean walk through back yards, jumping fences and avoiding the occasional formerly domesticated family pet. They peek through kitchen windows and patio doors, catching snapshots of a world that was never theirs and never would be. They’re not sure what they’re looking for, just sure that they’ll know it when they find it. Their situation is pretty monumentally fucked, all things considered; they’re a two hour drive away from camp, don’t have a car and the sun has already marched too far across the sky.

They also can’t stop smiling at each other.

They find a minivan with a partial tank of gas and a battery that still works, and Dean adamantly refuses. He’ll walk the hundred miles back to camp before he’ll take that kinda dent to his pride. Dean makes the case for a ‘Vette they trip across, obviously someone’s mid-life crisis and treated with the requisite amount of care. It’s in mint condition, t-top, candy apple red and pretty as a picture. Sam leads him out of the garage, muttering about how fiberglass wouldn’t stand a chance against a croat with a baseball bat.

“Aw, Sam. You ruin all my fun,” Dean complains.

Sam leers at him, says, “Not _all_ of your fun,” and Dean feels his face go red, all the way to the tips of his ears.

They compromise on a pickup that still has farming equipment in the back, shovels and pitchforks, clumps of soil clogging the corners of the bed, long turned to dust. Something about a wide bench seat makes them both feel at home. Dean gets it started on the third try. The tape deck clicks on and Johnny Cash comes through the speakers on a blast of sound that almost sends the two of them clawing through the back window.

“Hell, no.” Sam says, thumbing the tape out decisively.

“But Johnny’s a classic,” Dean says.

“He’s too sanctimonious.”

“Sanctimonious?” Dean arches an eyebrow at Sam. “He killed a man in Reno, just to watch him die.”

“Eh,” Sam shrugs. “I call bullshit.”

Dean makes it out onto the highway and points the truck in a direction vaguely north and east. He’s been this way before and doesn’t need a map, drives on the wrong side of the road just because he can. The truck’s a relic, honest-to-god cigarette lighter in the dash and lights that you turn on by pulling a chrome knob. Eight-track tape deck and a radio with exactly five presets.

Sam occupies the center of the seat, left hand riding high on the inside of Dean’s thigh and fucking around with the radio with his right. He concentrates, turns the dial past all the stations that spew government propaganda. They don’t need to hear it. Dean’s got a pet theory that Palin’s been possessed by a demon since the inauguration anyway. Sam pauses when something threatens to form out of the static, punches AM to FM and back to AM again until a voice breaks through. Rough and low, with a two-pack-a-day sound to it. It’s some guy’s pirate radio station, broadcasting from at least three states away. The guy’s on a real Dylan kick tonight, playing whole albums, and Dean drives for an hour to the piercing wail of a harmonica shooting across the ether. He makes the final turn toward home as the record changes to _Blonde on Blonde_ and Dean knows it’s vinyl, the real deal from the muted scratches coming through the speakers. He smiles when Dylan tells him that the Mona Lisa must’ve had them highway blues, thinks the guy might be onto something there.

Sam’s next to him the whole time, rocking with the dips in the road. Dean digs his elbow into Sam’s side, just to make him laugh.

  
Cas is manning the gate tonight, which is kinda laughable, considering the guy is down to one good foot and his aim was shit even before he started in on the self-medication. The truck’s headlights catch on him. The whites of his eyes are bright red and he’s swaying a little.  
  
“Good to see you in once piece,” Cas says as Dean rolls to a stop and gets out in front of the gate. “Nate’s in his cabin. He doesn’t know you’ve come back.”  
  
Dean nods, reaches out and nudges Sam. “Head on home. I won’t be long.”  
  
It’s a short walk to Nate’s place, and the instant Dean’s shadow darkens his doorstep the guy starts spewing excuses. “We thought you were toast. Sam too. Sorry. I get that you’re pissed. We screwed up.”  
  
“I’m not pissed,” Dean says, filling up Nate’s doorway. “It’s not about me, anyway. You’re gone. You leave in the morning. Check your weapons with Cas at the gate.” Dean had learned a long time ago that clean breaks were better than crooked ones. He turns around and finds Hooper walking up the steps behind him. Dean stoops in front of him and the kid flinches back. Dean doesn’t like that one bit. He understands it, though. “Do me a favor, would ya?” he says. “When you grow up, don’t turn into me. Whatever you do, don’t be like me. Got it?”  
  
Hooper’s face is wide open and solemn. He nods, but doesn’t say a word.  
  
“And don’t forget to brush your teeth.”  
  
Sam’s sitting on the bed when Dean busts through their door. He’s wearing only his shorts, his bare chest tinted a warm color from the lamplight. He’d found the chance to wash up, his hair wet and dripping on his shoulders, his skin clean and smelling like soap.  
  
Plucking at his sweaty clothes, Dean says, “I’m filthy.”  
  
“I wouldn’t have you any other way.” Sam stands up and towers over Dean. “Did you kill them?” Sam asks, and Dean isn’t sure if he’s joking.  
  
“Ah, man. I’ve gone soft. Just kicked ‘em out.”  
  
“That’s not soft and you know it.” Sam’s mouth twitches like he’s trying not to smile. He takes his time stripping Dean down, kissing and licking at each newly exposed patch of skin. By the time he turns his attention to Dean’s waistband, Dean’s a shaking, begging mess, so hard he aches with it, precome soaking through his shorts and seeping into his jeans. Sam kicks the blankets to the foot of the bed, pulls Dean down on top of him and uses him instead.  
  
They screw around and then cat nap, wake up just enough to screw around again. It’s limitless, the things Dean wants to do to his brother. At one point Dean wakes from an uneasy doze and finds Sam curled between his legs, his back bent like a quotation mark. He’s got Dean’s cock in his mouth and he’s sucking him fully hard again, his mouth all sloppy wet heat and his hands skating up the sensitive skin on the inside of Dean’s thighs, forcing his legs wider. Dean opens up as far as he can go, hooks his leg around Sam’s shoulder and gets lost in the press of Sam’s tongue along the underside of his cock. Sam takes Dean down to the base, moans as Dean sinks his hips into the mattress then gives in and bucks up.  
  
Dean touches Sam’s cheek and feels the shape of his own cock, drags his thumb at the seal Sam’s lips have all around him. Dean says “Look at me,” and Sam does. He comes like a shot.  
  
This last time might be the best by far. They’ve wrecked one bed and moved to the other, clean sheets cool on Dean’s sweaty back. Sam hovers over him, sinking down onto Dean’s cock and it’s slow like torture, hot and so, _so_ tight. The muscles in Sam’s legs shake with the effort, and he breathes in short, bitten-off gasps. He takes Dean all the way in, moves his hips in an experimental little circle then shivers. Precome beads at the tip of Sam’s cock and Dean gathers it onto his palm, smears it up and down Sam’s length and jerks him off. Sam likes it rough and fast, so Dean obliges, throws his head back when Sam comes, squirming and clenching down on Dean’s cock as he spills over Dean’s fist.  
  
Sam’s hands are spread wide across Dean’s chest, fingernails scraping lightly at Dean’s nipples each time he shifts. They set a rhythm of slow, easy thrusts, and Dean slides into his orgasm, already mostly spent and shooting dry, straining to get deeper into his brother. Sam looks at Dean the whole time, and every slight change in Sam’s expression hits Dean like a revelation.    
  


 

  
  
Dean’s aware of the empty place at his back before he’s fully awake. He’s slow to open his eyes, doesn’t want to wake up and find Sam gone. He’d spent the last five years nurturing apathy, but Sam has come back—or at least the most important parts of him—and it’s left Dean scrubbed raw and exposed.  
  
From across the room, chair legs thunk onto the floor, the soft fall of heels against the planks follows soon after and Dean rolls over, tucks his hands beneath his cheek and looks at his brother, really looks at him, openly and unashamed, like this might be his last chance. He’s caught very much off guard by the beauty of his brother, the fragility of him in that moment.  Sam's sitting in the straight backed chair across the room, skin the color of tarnished silver from the predawn light slipping in through the window. His head is bowed, hair spilled into his eyes and he has his hands clasped loosely between his spread knees, the thumb of one hand tracing over the knuckles of the other.   
  
“You gave me a butterfly knife when I was fifteen. I wanted one so badly. Kept asking for it for a month, and you finally got me one for my birthday. Useless goddamn weapon.”  
  
Dread solidifies into a rock in Dean’s gut and starts to slingshot around. “I remember,” Dean says.  
  
“Showed me how to use it, too. Do you remember what you told me?”  
  
Dean can’t be too sure, but he’d always had a pretty well-worn script when it came to things that could potentially make Sam bleed, so he makes an educated guess. “I told you not to cut yourself.”  
  
“And the first thing I did was cut myself.”  
  
Despite it all, Dean has to smile. “Not too deep, though. And you were always a pretty quick healer.”  
  
Sam continues to rub at his knuckles, perhaps chasing some phantom pain from years and years ago. It had been a shallow cut, a month out and even the scar had disappeared. “Back then, I thought I was the only kid on the planet whose birthday presents always came with some sorta warning label.”  
  
“You probably were.”  
  
“I think it started then. I was crazy about you. Fifteen years old and all I could think about was how much I wanted my brother.” What he says next is so quiet that Dean can only barely make it out. “Why didn’t you tell me?”  
  
“I thought it would be easier on you. There’s a lifetime of stuff I wish I could forget, and here…you show up and it’s all wiped clean. Or it was. I didn’t want to take that away from you.”  
  
“Couldn’t sleep, and I was sitting here watching you, and everything was so quiet and I started to think about that one hotel room in Missoula, and that goddamn awful wallpaper. You remember it? The stuff with all the fishing lures all over it?”  
  
“Yeah, Sammy. I remember.”  
  
“It’s Sam,” he says, but any sort of reproach is swallowed up by his smile, a white flash of teeth in the darkness. “And it hit me. All at once. All the times that we’d been like this. Exactly like this. Just you and me. So it’s here. It’s back, and…I don’t know how long it’s gonna last. But I want you to know that I’m not saying no. It’s never going to be no.”  
  
Dean can't tear his eyes away, so entirely in love with his brother.  Dean tries to compact all of that into something small and simple. Sam’s always been the smart one, though. Dean just knows how to hit. He says the only thing that comes to mind, and hopes it will be enough. “Then get back over here.”  
  
The nights are getting longer. Colder too. Dean has a feeling in his bones. It’s going to be a long winter. Outside, the wind howls like the devil.  
  
Sam’s feet are freezing when he gets in bed. His fingertips are just as cold, and Dean shivers as Sam touches his face, presses his thumb to Dean’s bottom lip.  
  
“I knew it,” Sam says from up close. “Even when I wasn’t sure of anything else.”  
  
“What did you know?” Dean fits his palm over Sam’s hip.  
  
“That we’d always end up here. That whatever happened in between, no matter what, we’d always end up right here.”  
  
  
fin.  
  
  
Thanks for reading.


End file.
